Ok, so maybe I am painting at the Fairfield Inn in one mile from the actual beach, but STILL. I have told my children that once Soph goes to college I am off to the beach. I will live by the beach, I will paint by the beach, I will run on the beach. With my dogs who will live forever. YES THEY WILL, SHUT UP. That is the life I will have in the future and it will be good. And right now I am having a moment that is close. Boyfriend called me on Monday and said, "Um, I know your birthday is Wednesday and I promised to take you to a fancy restaurant to wear your fancy dress because we are retards and the last time you wore your fancy pants dress we forgot to take pictures of us all dressed up, but I have a business trip I have to leave for on your birthday." Yes, he said it just like that. And I was all ?????.... And then he said, "but it is in Myrtle Beach, near the water and maybe you can come and paint there?" And I was all, "OK!!!!" So yesterday I packed up an optimistic number of paintings to get done in one day, went and had lunch with my babies at school, told them I was going to get them some presents from Myrtle Beach (they are with dad this week) and jumped in boyfriend's car and drove. Can I tell you how much fun I have with this man? We have gone on many a trip now, all driving ones and we have never had to turn on music yet. We just love to talk and if he gets tired he seems to not mind my incessant babbeling, singing, humming and strange habit of randomly reading signs for no reason. And I love to drive his car. He has a very nice german brand car, boy those germans know their engineering, they do!, and I LOVE to drive it. Which is nice, cause he does not like to drive as much as me. But me, after being in my ford contour that has no working radio, the seats mostly don't adjust, the air only works full blast at a noise level that sounds like you are in a jet when it is on, is mostly full of dog hair and has dog slobber on the windows (yeah I know that is not so much the car's fault as mine) has a lovely hole in the bumber that people have begun stopping me in traffic to tell me they can fix (yeah, I have money for that) oh and as a side note I have a "Life is Good" magnet right next to it because I love the irony, and as of late it seems to buck like a horse when I drive it over 40 mph. So his car? I LOVE. I drove almost the whole 6.5 hours here. So anyway, we just went down to contintal breakfast and I had me some lovly raisin bran, coffee, oj and toast, took a banana and yogurt up to the room for a snack later and am about to paint while he does computer-y stuff at the office. I have many paintings to do by Christmas, not quite eleventy-million, but close. Eleven, actually, but still. So i need to get started, but I need to tell this one last story. Pay attention, I know I have rambled, but this is good.

So, four years ago I began painting. A few months after I quite my full time job and was painting dogs out the wazoo I began hanging art in local coffee shops to keep the commissions coming in. I got an email from a man that had seen my art and was so excited to get a portrait of their dog Grace for his wife's anniversary. Well I did that painting and so that his wife would not know about it, I dropped it off to his work (WAY before studio space was even a glint in my eye) I got an email about a week later from a man who had been a coworker of the other guy and had seen my art that day I dropped it off. He had just gotten the cutest puppy in the world and said he LOVED my art and wanted a portrait. Well I told the guy to wait until the puppy got a bit older and her markings were more apparent and to email me back. (Are you people paying attention, the good part is coming.) So of course life happens and said man never writes again. No problem. I lost track of him and he left that company as did the other guy. The guy who actually bought my art moved to Chicago or something so his wife could finish her PhD. Well about a year ago I met this very nice guy through some friends. We got to talking and had a nice time. The next time we saw each other he said, ya know, your name sounded so familiar so I googled you. I wrote you 3 years ago for a portrait! I asked his name and I remembered him as well. "I still have that email! How funny!" I said. So for the next year we were friends and hung out quite a bit. This past July we realized that not only did we adore spending time with each other, but we adored each other. And we began dating. And he is now officially, "BEST BOYFRIEND IN THE WORLD." Yes, really, he has the statue to prove it. So anyway, last month boyfriend's company bought out another computer company in Myrtle Beach - why I am here. And here is the small world part - through a series of moves and after his wife got her PhD, the orginal coworker works for the company that just got bought from the company my boyfriend works for. Follow? Go reread if you need to, I'll wait....Ok....And guess who we are having dinner with tonite??? Yes, I am having dinner with the guy and his wife whose dog I painted 4 years ago. How cool is life?? Yes, it is that cool! And now I must go paint by the beach and remember how super amazing life is and that when some things come full circle you can't help but be amazed with this thing called life and be so gratefull to wake up each day and see what surprise may be in store for you. Told you it was a cool story...

Last week I sent out an email to past clients offering half price commissions that could be completed by Christmas. I filled up just about all of my slots which was great and I am up to my eyeballs in paintings, but for my internet buddies I would like to offer one final half price sale for gift certificates. Now, I know it is not the same as a painting under the tree, but the nice thing about my gift certificates, besides being super cute (see below) is that your loved one gets to pick out their background. Plus they never expire. PLUS you can get them right now for HALF PRICE. I will only offer this until Friday, Dec 15 to make sure they can get into the mail no later than Satyrday. You have to pay by Friday via PayPal or by check or I can now also accept credit cards - which I prefer over Paypal, but I will still accept that too. Now if you call and promise to mail the check I will go ahead and mail it out. I have never, ever been not paid this way because pet lovers are THE most awesome people on earth, so i trust you all. Just promise to mail it by Friday and I will send you the gift certificate.Obviously, call me if you want to pay via credit card so I can get your info.

Ok, so go check out the commissions page, look at all the sizes and prices.

http://www.abeytacreative.com/commissions.html

You can get a gift certificate for half up until Friday. So go! Have fun, splurge and order for yourself! I Will be filling orders as they come in and you can redeem gift certificates right after Christmas, or even before, but I will not be painting after December 22. I will resume January 2. (Now, if anyone HAS to have a painting under the trree for Christmas, I can do one or two rush orders which will not be half price, actually a bit more, but email me if you gots ta have it!!

For questions, please email me at michelle@abeytacreative.com and I can give you my business number to call if you like.
Happy Holidays!

Ok, so besides having the most perfect, amazing boyfriend on the planet now, I just had the most amazing day on Saturday with him and the kids. So Sophie is in third grade. The same grade I was in when I got my first Cabbage Patch doll. Ok, all you 30 somethings, do you REMEMBER the madness???? Oh, yes you do. And moms of us 30 something, I can't imagine the crazyness of trying to get those dolls. My mom, not only managed to get one, BUT THREE. She had three daughters. Have fun with that mom, but the woman did it. I have no idea how, but only now with two kids can I even begin to imagine how hard that was. But boy can I remember getting my Cabbage Patch that Christmas. It was magical. She had brown hair and a blue gingham dress. her name was Deborah Marie. I LOVED that doll. So when Sophie said for Christmas she wanted a Cabbage Patch newborn, I was all, "OK!!!" But my boyfriend, heard it too. And he wanted to not only get it for her, but, ok, are all of you ready to be JEALOUS girls??? He wanted to take her right after he bought it for her to BABYLAND GENERAL. That's right people! THE HOME OF THE CABBAGE PATCH!!! It is located just an hour or so north of Atlanta. So we went to Toys R Us, and she picked out her new baby, Rebecca Libby, quite the adorable brown haired, blued eyed newborn that matched Sophie's features, then of course he got Noah a Game Boy Advance game that put Noah into another world for pretty much the next 2 hours and off we went an hour north to Cleveland, Georgia.

So I have to admit, I was as excited as Sophie. BABYLAND GENERAL!!! It was everything I, er I mean Sophie could hope for! It was truly a magical place and everyone played their parts so convincingly that you actually felt like you were in a real baby hospital. We even witnessed Mother Cabbage give birth to a baby boy, Dennis Noah. (I am not sure if my son will ever forgive me for yelling out his name as a name for the new baby in a room full of squealing girls, but I was delighted!!) So here are pictures of one happy mama and daughter. Andf the son who tolerated it because he had the new Eragon game... I added in pics from our lunch in Helen , Georgia later that day. It was a wonderful, amazing weekend. Thank you, thank you, thank you sweet boyfriend for gving such a wonderful gift to my daughter and I. I know it is a day we all will not forget.